One of the reasons we participate in conferences is to learn. Participating in the ALA Midwinter Meeting as ALA’s president-elect is definitely a learning experience!

I have had opportunities to learn about ALA from a variety of perspective, each of them informative in a distinctive way–as a division president, as a member of Council, as chair of the Committee on Organization (COO), as a member of the Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC), as a member of the ALA Executive Board, as a candidate for ALA president, and in other roles. All have helped paint a fuller picture of this incredibly complex organization.

We learn on or own and we learn from others. Both fellow ALA members and ALA staff are wonderful teachers for a president-elect. Since May staff have been helping me understand the role and responsibilities of the president-elect. More significantly, they have helped me transform ideas for presidential initiatives into programs and to create a realistic budget to carry out those programs

Fellow ALA members proved to be good teachers in two ways. I had the opportunity to meet with a number of ALA committees, especially those focused on advocacy efforts and a group in the Emerging Leaders program, to describe those initiatives. Members’ questions have helped me refine my thinking about those initiatives. Some responsibilities rest distinctively with the president or the president-elect. Among those is presiding over Council meetings. While president Loriene Roy was in New York to appear in the Today show with this year’s winners of the Newbery and Caldecott medals, I presided at the second meeting of the ALA Council. Suffice it to say that it was a learning experience. I imagine that meeting was also a learning experience for the new members of Council.

I also learned, as next year either Linda Williams or Camilla Alire will, that sleep is not a major part of the schedule of an ALA president-elect during the Midwinter Meeting. I suspect that is a lesson that will be renewed at the Annual conference, at next year’s Midwinter, and at the 2009 Annual Conference. At the same time, it was an exhilarating experience! It also had a lot in common with my experience as a candidate at the 2007 Midwinter Meeting. Then and again this year I had the rewarding opportunity to meet a wide range of ALA members and hear their concerns and ideas. What did I learn from both of those Midwinter experiences? I learned that ALA members are committed to our profession, to our Association, and to building a vibrant future for both.